Time To Tender Top Jobs At City Hall?

 How Much Would Someone Else Charge??

Competition Is A Good Thing With Other Costs

Over the past number of years there has been some examples of going to out of town companies because it would seem they are able to provide Nanaimo taxpayers with better value.

A few example include Corix for major water supplies, a new accounting firm to do the city's books and recently an Ontario company to maintain the ad benches spotted around town.

All of these contract decisions have taken contracts away from Nanaimo based companies and moved your tax dollars out of the community. There is a sound argument for this strategy, however when deciding to spend $12 million on a shiny new office, a tender was not necessary.

Go figure?

Time To Tender Top Paying Jobs At City Hall

What Would The Saving Be?

The current data is not available but in 2009 our top ten money earners at city hall ranked in the top 5% of over 8,000 employees province wide. Our own city manager ranked #39 out of 8100 other employees meaning there were only 38 other folk province wide making more. He was able to gain his position without a public competition. Go figure!

So, why aren't these top positions put up for tender every five years to see if there are not equally as qualified people who would love to move to Nanaimo and do as good as, or perhaps better than job, than is currently being done.

After all we do have a fantastic lifestyle to offer and I would be amazed if we couldn't reduce the cost of managing the city considerably if we let the market talk, as city hall has found to be a money saver when it comes to other purchases.

Pay attention to who salutes when I run this up the flagpole, and who begins to tell you how unfair it would be to current staffers. Before you go shedding too many tears, check out the size of pensions these guys and gals qualify for when they retire (usually to open a consulting business).